Today's Birthdays 3/10

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 3/10/09 at 12:16am

Today would have been my dear friend Gilda Drago Van Berger’s 89th birthday! This lady had more energy than any bunch of people I know & loved life to the very end. She could have written a book: "Been There, Done That and Back Again!" It was she who taught me that “We’re not here for a long time. We’re here for a good time! So make it magical. Live, Love & Laugh!" Happy Birthday, Gilda!

Barry Fitzgerald 03/10/1888 - Jan 4, 1961 performer, Brother of Arthur Shields - 1934 & 1940 Juno and the Paycock; film's Academy Award-winning [supporting] actor: Going My Way [1944]; Bringing Up Baby, How Green Was My Valley, The Quiet Man

Sam Jaffe 03/10/1891 - Mar 24, 1984 performer - origs: Jazz Singer (George Jessel); Grand Hotel; 1937 A Doll's House (Ruth Gordon); Cafe Crown (Sam Wannamaker); Mademoiselle Colombe (Julie Harris, Edna Best); film's Asphalt Jungle; The Scarlet Empress; my fav Gunga Din

Claire Boothe Luce 3/10/1903 - 10/9/1987 American playwright and politician - playwright: The Women, Kiss the Boys Goodbye, Margin of Error; editor: Vogue, Vanity Fair; politician: U.S. Congresswoman [1943-47]; U.S. Ambassador to Italy [1953-56]

David Rabe 03/10/1940 playwright – Hurly, Burly [I loath & despise this play!]; Streamers; Casualties of War; I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can

Katharine Houghton 03/10/1945 performer; niece of actress Katharine Hepburn - A Very Rich Woman; The Front Page (Peggy Cass, Julia Meade); film's Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Billy Bathgate, The Night We Never Met

Mark Lamos 03/10/1946 Director, Performer, Other, Producer - 2007 Cymbeline (John Cullum, Michael Cerveris, Martha Plimpton, Phylicia Rashad);2005 Seascape; 2004 The Rivals; The Love Suicide at Schofield Barracks (Mercedes McCambridge); The Creation of the World and Other Business (Zoe Caldwell, George Grizzard); Our Country's Good (Cherry Jones, J. Smith-Cameron); Cyrano

Jasmine Guy 03/10/1964 performer - 1984 The Wiz; Leader of the Pack; 1994 Grease; 1996 Chicago; tv's & film's Fame; A Different World; School Daze; Touched by an Angel; Madeline; Dead Like Me

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

Marie Dressler's "All Star Gambol" 03/10/1913

1954 A posthumous revival of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera proves to be his biggest hit. The Theatre de Lys revival translated by Marc Blitzstein and directed by Carmen Capalbo will run seven years and attain Off-Broadway's record run, until surpassed by The Fantasticks. Stars of this production include Bea Arthur, Lotte Lenya, Scott Merrill, Jo Sullivan, John Astin and Charlotte Rae.

1959 Sweet Bird of Youth plays at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York. Geraldine Page stars as an aging actress with Paul Newman as her paid escort. Rip Torn, Diana Hyland, and Sidney Blackmer are also in the cast. This Tennessee Williams drama will play for 375 performances. Elia Kazan stages.

1965 - Walter Matthau and Art Carney opened in The Odd Couple, one of Neil Simon’s greatest theatrical triumphs. It would also become a hit on television, with Tony Randall playing the tidy Felix Ungar and Jack Klugman as slovenly sportswriter, Oscar Madison. The play opened at the Plymouth Theatre in New York City.

1971 Abelard and Heloise with Keith Michell, Dianna Rigg - wish I'd seen this!

1974 Ulysses in Nighttown with Zero Mostel, Swen Swenson, Margery Beddow, Barbara Blair, Tom Lee Jones, David Ogden Stiers, Carolyn Kirsch, Robin Howard, Beulah Garrick, Michael Clarke-Laurence, Norman Barrs, Douglas Anderson, Fionnuala Flanagan, W.B. Brydon and Bert Michaels

1975 Critics and audiences don't know what to make of Richard (Ritz) O'Brien's London import, a bizarre science-fiction musical called The Rocky Horror Show. It opens today and runs just 45 performances at the Belasco Theatre. Broadway stars Tim Curry, Meat Loaf, and O'Brien will repeat their roles in the film version, which will become one of the all-time successful cult classics.

2000 Tony-nominated composer-lyricist Michael John LaChiusa begins performances of his Broadway musical, The Wild Party, at the Virginia Theatre, starring Mandy Patinkin and Eartha Kitt. Coincidentally, it is the second New York musical of this season to be based on that 1928 poem by Joseph Moncure March. Off-Broadway's Manhattan Theatre Club staged composer-lyricist-librettist Andrew Lippa's version with the same title.

2002 The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

ON THIS DAY IN:

1956 - Julie Andrews was 23 years old this night when she made her TV debut. She appeared with Bing Crosby and Nancy Olson in the musical adaptation of Maxwell Anderson’s play, High Tor.

2002 Also today, Irene Worth, the Nebraska-born actress who played legendary roles in London, Broadway and the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, dies at age 85.

2003 In an attempt to settle a three-day-old strike by musicians that has shut down Broadway musicals, Mayor Michael Bloomberg hosts Jed Bernstein of the League of American Theatres and Producers and Bill Moriarity of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians in an evening bargaining session that will continue through the night.

(sources: IBDB, IMDB, NYT's ON THIS DAY, 440.com’s Those Were The Days, Playbill.com)

Milla